Free Republic

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop its new policy of sending asylum-seekers who jumped the border back to Mexico to wait while their cases proceed, ruling Monday that the plan was likely illegal... Judge Richard Seeborg, an Obama appointee to the bench, said... Mexico is so dangerous that making asylum-seekers wait there — even if they’re not from Mexico — is untenable.

Victor Davis Hanson takes a historical lens to Donald Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again.” Have such things been done in the past? Have certain gifted leaders been able to arrest and even reverse nations in seemingly inexorable decline? Professor Hanson discusses the small group of leaders he believes met that mandate, and explains what they have in common. 20 minute audio (podcast)

WASHINGTON: The Democrats’ recapturing the House means three major impacts on the Defense Department: The odds are that controversial Trump priorities like new nuclear weapons and a Space Force will go nowhere, defense budgets will go down, and oversight will go up, up, up.

Headquarter the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah? Absolutely. Just don’t start thinking it will be the Utah Bureau of Land Management.
With the encouragement of Rep. Rob Bishop and Gov. Gary Herbert, Acting Assistant Secretary of Interior Susan Combs came to town this week to discuss a possible move to either Salt Lake City or Ogden. Her boss, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, has pushed the idea of moving more of Interior’s work to the western United States where most federal lands are.

Instead of electronically recording its interviews and interrogations, the FBI’s policy is to rely on agents’ typewritten “section 302 reports,” crafted to reflect the supposed substance of the exchange. At such sessions, one agent takes notes by hand while the second agent—in the traditional two-agent FBI interviewing team—conducts the interview/interrogation. Tape recordings are almost never done because such recordation is – believe it or not – against formal written FBI policy. Therefore, the 302 report becomes the sole arbiter of what was, and was not, said; moreover, as we will see below, any interviewee who contests its accuracy risks prosecution....

Some Policy: After yet another highly publicized and very deadly weekend in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanual has come up with a plan to finally address the rising gang-related violence. Sort of. He’s essentially asking gangs to cut it out. While promising to deploy “hundreds” more police officers, Emanuel said in an address that he also wants to see an “attitudinal change” among Chicagoans — and especially gang bangers.

America is trying to win a race of technological dominance over China, but the education system isn’t exactly playing along, and increasingly, it’s up to the corporate world to fill in the gaps. U.S. employers face serious skill shortages in several industries including health care and science and technology, with some reports claiming that as many as 500,000 tech jobs go unfilled each year, and the U.S. Labor Department saying for a decade starting in 2015 there will be an estimated 1 million computing jobs without applicants to fill them. The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) estimates that 1.8 million...

Where did the current policy of separating children from the parents during Illegal border crossings originate? All I find when I search are it's all the Trump Administrations fault. Every search engine seems to come up nothing but the Left's viewpoint here. Yet I have read someplace that these policies predate Trump. So any help appreciated on information on this.

An Indiana teacher says he was forced to resign after he refused to comply with the school district’s policy of addressing transgender students by their preferred names. John Kluge, the former orchestra teacher at Brownsburg High School in Brownsburg, Indiana, argued that the policy ― which also requires teachers to refer to students using the pronouns which best align with their gender identity ― goes against his religious beliefs and violates the First Amendment. “I’m being compelled to encourage students in what I believe is something that’s a dangerous lifestyle,” the teacher, who has been with the Brownsburg School District...

MUST-SEE VIDEO: Obama's race-based anti-discipline directive forcing schools to go from Zero Tolerance to Extreme Tolerance policies has led to violence and bullying in Baltimore County Public Schools and hundreds other school districts across the country: https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1004392831241383936 ***** Interesting that the parents in the above video do not consider home-schooling their children

Customers are not only paying for the coffee; they are paying for the heat and air conditioning, tables, accessible WiFi and bathrooms. Partners are paid to keep the place clean and comfortable for customers who spend literal hours studying, working, and holding meetings in the store. It seems like a fair trade to me. It doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me, however, if I pay $5 for my drink and then have to wait in line with a bunch of random tourists who just walked in wanting to use the single-family bathroom without buying anything. It also doesn’t...

"House passes new law to reform space licensing rules, Russians deal with yellow-water on ISS, Moscow contemplates banning rocket-engine sales to USA, Russia agrees to replace lost Angolan communications satellite, Indian Space Agency pulls back on launch over quality-issues, and...is Sierra Nevada still in the Game?"

The House yesterday passed a new law to reform the commercial space licensing rules...Essentially, the bill shifts a majority of commercial space regulation to the Department of Commerce, and matches somewhat closely the recommendations being put forth by the Trump administration. The bill appears to be almost identical to the version I analyzed in great detail in an op-ed for The Federalist last year.

Hello, Florida, Governor, Rick Scott...we know that Congress critters, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ted Deutch & Frederica Wilson will sit on their liberal Democrat hands to protect Robert Runcie, Broward County School District, Superintendent and Broward County Sheriff, Scott Israel from any legal or criminal action against them, bot, for the mass massacre of seventenn (17) innocent children and teachers at Parkland High School. These two people stood by and, directly allowed this slaughter to go forward, when they both has multiple warning and clear shout outs as to what was coming. Governor, Rick Scott will you be doing the same?...

...since the beginning of the 21st century the U.S. government has struggled to create and maintain a viable launch industry...Even as the federal government struggled with this problem, a fledgling crop of new American private launch companies have emerged in the past decade, funded initially by the vast profits produced by the newly born internet industry. These new companies have not been motivated by national prestige, military strength, or any of the traditional national political goals of the federal government. Instead, these private entities have been driven by profit, competition, and in some cases the ideas of the visionary individuals...

Batchelor and Zimmerman discuss Trump & SLS (space launch system) and in part 2; "Jupiter is different than anything else."

Roscosmos, is considering offering future space tourists the chance to do their own spacewalk for $100 million price tag.

Fake science: Two articles yesterday from the so-called science journals Nature and Science today illustrate once again how pervasive the corruption in the climate field has now spread to almost anything that relates to climate

The bureaucrats in Washington really have little interest in safety, but instead are more focused in putting their thumbs on the scale in order to specifically harm the commercial space companies -- especially SpaceX's. One report in particular, by NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), was especially hostile to these private efforts, even as it remained completely unconcerned about similar but far worse safety issues that exist with NASA's government-built and competing SLS and Orion programs.

A new poll shows the GOP is more trusted than Democrats to handle the hot-button immigration issue — and large percentages of Hispanic and African-American voters are backing President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” immigration policy. The respondents were asked” “Who do you trust more to handle the following issue?” The answer for immigration was 40 percent for Democrats, 41 percent for the GOP and a huge 20 percent for “Don’t know” or “No answer.” That is a large percentage of non-answers, and likely hides a block of pro-Trump supporters who fear to respond truthfully. The poll of 1997...